#94: The Best Podcasts of the Week
Bello Collective newsletter: September 18, 2019
Dear Bellos,
Podcasts aren’t always fun. Some are sad; some are painful; some are just hard to listen to. The most poignant pieces for me are the ones where the emotion breaks through the noise and touches its white-hot flame against my heart.
I had that experience with the latest episode of Awful Grace, “Again the Never Came.”
The episode starts with 13-ish minutes of scrolling through the radio (or TV?) channels, pausing on each just long enough to decide it’s not what the scroller want to hear. The episode is over an hour long, and I thought, listening to the beginning, An hour of scrolling — this’ll be interesting! But then the impact comes. The year is 2001. The date is September 11th. The place is New York City. The first tower has just been hit.
The rest of the episode is news footage from that day, and a 911 call. I listened to it in two parts; I had to stop for a meeting, but I welcomed that break. I’ve largely avoided media about 9/11 (I was 11-years-old on that day, and I lived two miles from ground zero) and I probably would have skipped this episode, too, if I’d known what I was getting into.
The piece is non-narrated, I guess you’d say. Or rather, it’s narrated by people who know the moment is historic but don’t yet have all the details or the distance of time. It’s not a story of a moment, but a moment itself. There’s no reflection after the fact; there is only the fact.
Listening to this piece reminded me of listening to Herb Morrison narrate the Hindenburg disaster in 1937. If you haven’t heard that audio, I recommend listening to it, both for its historic value and for its emotional impact. The tape was not broadcast live. Morrison was trying to capture a present trauma for a future audience while processing it for himself.
“Again the Never Came” and the Hindenburg report are notable for what they lack: narration that reflects what we know today. Narration can make a piece easier to take in, and sometimes easier to make, but building in hindsight can also build in distance. Without it, time collapses, and the white-hot emotion presses through.
xo,
Galen
1. The Hot and Bothered podcast encourages people who write romance novels to make meaning in their lives, which involves one-on-one sessions with Vanessa Zoltan, homework assignments from romance novelist Julia Quinn, and offering conversational advice to Reddit romance threads. “The Conundrum” is a wonderful intertwining of the “secret baby” romance trope, along with the host’s personal ponderings (through reflective writing, phone calls, and voicemails) of having a baby. (Ma’ayan)
2. I’ve been waiting for Weeknight Kitchen with Melissa Clark since I heard the tease of it on The Splendid Table — my very first podcast — months ago; I even had a reminder on my phone to check in about its release date every week! I knew that Melissa Clark’s knowledge, ease in the kitchen, and accessible food tips were going to translate splendidly into audio form, and now that it’s here: it delivers. You’re at Melissa’s elbow the entire time as she bustles around the kitchen; you can hear and smell and almost taste the meal she’s making; and if she can do it while making a podcast, then you, too, can make dinner tonight. (Ma’ayan)
3. In each episode of List Envy, Mark Steadman and his guest make a collaborative top five list on a given category. A recent episode about top five British foods made me very hungry indeed, and allowed listeners a small glimpse into British life. (Calen)
4. The Elephant (in the room) is climate change — and also a new series about carbon capture and climate technologies. Start with “Has This Scientist Found The Way To Save The World From CO2?” It made me feel better about our chances of survival on this planet. (Calen)
5. When I saw the latest episode of The Doc Project was about aphantasia, I jumped it to the top of my queue. Aphantasia is a condition in which a person cannot visualize anything — they can see just fine, but they have no mind’s eye (or, in some cases, mind’s ear, nose, or tongue). The term was coined in 2015, and I first heard it last year, when I listened to an indie podcast all about living with the condition. Sadly, that show only lasted three episodes, but luckily, The Doc Project and many other shows are picking up the ball. (Galen)
6. When something piques my interest, I can suddenly find myself in a rabbithole of information. I watched the Undone series on Netflix, and now I am an expert in rotoscoping. I watched Ken Burns country music documentary, and I can now tick off each of Tammy Wynette’s marriages. So when Disney released a series about their film scoring called For Score (an unforgivable pun), I suddenly found myself deep into the music stories of recent Disney films. Beware: This doesn’t have the usual pomp of a Disney product; it’s definitely a show for music nerds. (Ashley)
7. Unravel: Snowball is somehow both an investigation of a major and harmful con job as well as the heartwarming, charming story of a New Zealand family. In an unusual true crime twist, the investigative host is also one of the victims. Ollie Wards’ older brother Greg fell in love with a restaurant-obsessed con woman who devastated his family and their financial future. Ollie sets out to understand why and how, and if there are other victims. Instead of a podcast of anger and revenge, what comes across is a deeply kind and forgiving family that really seem to love and support one another, even if one of them is truly fixated on bringing in Dr. Phil to solve the mystery. (Dana)
8. I binged Manifest on Hulu a few weeks back, and I’ve been craving another good mystery airline thriller to fill its place. It was filled perfectly with Passenger List, the latest podcast from Radiotopia. (Dana)
9. Rose Drive, a mystery-conspiracy thriller, recently dropped their three-part season one finale, and it is an adrenaline-fueled race to the finish for Marcus Hill and his friends, where Marcus’ quest for vengeance has taken a turn for the strange and frightening. (Elena)
10. The Hidden Almanac released their series finale this week, after six years of micro-episodes comprised of weird and unusual updates from Reverend Mord. For five minutes three times a week, Reverend Mord, and sometimes his companion Pastor Drom, recounts historical events that happened on that day in and around the odd little town of Echo Harbor, talks about a saint’s feast day, and offers gardening tips. Thank you for so many years of wonderful stories that helped us puzzle out the world of Echo Harbor and find a little moment of peace and quiet for ourselves. (Elena)
11. Psychology and the Good Life is Yale’s most popular course ever, with a full one third of the undergraduate class signing up for it last year. And then it became one the most popular MOOCs as The Science of Happiness, with over 300,000 people taking it for free online. Now, Yale professor Laurie Santos distilled the ideas into a new podcast from Pushkin Industries called The Happiness Lab. Your well-being will thank you for listening. (Erik)
12. Imperfect Produce, the grocery delivery service that’s taken over the U.S., recently released Unwasted, which shares interviews with prominent chefs, food critics, and CEOs of big-time grocery lines on how they — and us — can live more sustainably, eliminate our country’s huge food waste problem and get inspired to cook food in new ways. Host Reilly Brock manages to get personal and humorous with his guests, and it makes you feel like you’re in the kitchen with them. One thing I’ve learned so far in the show’s four episodes: lemons are hard to live without — because when life gives you lemons… you squeeze them hard and make delicious meals. (Ariel)
The Bello Collective is a publication + newsletter about podcasts and the audio industry. Our goal is to bring together writers, journalists, and other voices who share a passion for the world of audio storytelling.
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